Weeklong Events

PCC Cascade Campus Student Art Exhibition

PCC Cascade Gallery, CA TH 102

9am - 5pm Monday-Friday

See the wonderful new work created between Summer 2011 and Spring 2012 by PCC Cascade art students. Special guest juror Charles Froelick, owner of Froelick Gallery in Portland, will be presenting the awards.

The Gallery is open 9am - 5pm, Monday-Friday.

Reception: Tuesday, May 8, 5pm - 7pm. Awards given at 5:30pm.

Cascade - Outdoor Mall

May7th - May 11th (All day)

For five days a massive blackboard will be erected in the center of campus. Creative space will be open for anyone with a desire to express themselves filling the panels with all manner of spontaneous visual and written art. Boxes of sidewalk chalk will be transformed into poetry, stories, drawings and free expression of ideas. The constantly changing scenes will be video recorded and streamed live to a web site created for the event.

This project has been done in a number of other cities to great success. The design of the panels will be to create the maximum space possible so that hundreds of students and staff can become artists themselves and be seen by the whole community. The panels will be washed on a prearranged schedule to allow a constant opening of new space. Various departments on campus will be encouraged to use the panels as project spaces for their classes.

Monday, May 7

Yuji Hiratsuka - Featured Artist

11am - 12pm, MAHB 221

Join as this year's Featured Artist Yuji Hiratsuka discusses his intaglio printmaking process involving etching, drypoint, softground and roulette on a copper plate. Hiratsuka states, "Although my artwork is mainly considered representational, I deal with more metaphorical aspects rather than realistic physical evidence. The human bodies which are often simplified, exaggerated, and /or distorted along with other elements-- fruit, vegetables, furniture, animals, etc.--have been my most recent focus. I am interested in expressing human conditions such as mood, feeling and thought through ambiguous and whimsical figures."

Yuji Hiratsuka was born 1954 in Osaka, Japan. He was first educated in art at Osaka Ichiritsu Kogei High School (Osaka Municipal High School of Art & Industry) and then Tokyo Gakugei University (Tokyo Teachers' University). After receiving a B.S. in Art Education from the University in 1978, Hiratsuka taught art at several high and junior high schools in Osaka. In 1985 he moved to the United States to pursue graduate degrees in printmaking at New Mexico State University (MA) and Indiana University (MFA). Since 1987 Hiratsuka has been teaching printmaking and drawing at several universities. He currently serves as a professor of printmaking at Oregon State University, Corvallis.

Hiratsuka's graphic work has been exhibited in the Americas, Europe and Asia. He has received numerous awards in international competitions including most recently the Equal Prize at Majdanek 2000, VI International Art Triennial, Lublin, Poland. During the last five years he has had 13 solo shows in the United States, and international solo shows in Seoul, Korea; Quebec, Canada and Lisburn, N. Ireland.

Hiratsuka's work is in included in many public collection including The British Museum, UK; Tokyo Central Museum, Japan; Panstwowe Museum, Poland; The House of Humor and Satire, Bulgaria; Cincinnati Art Museum and Cleveland Art Museum , OH; Portland Art Museum, OR; The Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. and New York Public Library, NY.

Ural Thomas - Music Performance

Ural Thomas has lived in the same North Portland house since the 1960s and has been playing every Sunday for the past 40 years at the "House of Entertainment," the practice space/neighborhood music venue that he built himself, out by the back alley behind his house.

Consider this: Thomas has backed the Kingsmen, Paul Revere and the Raiders, the Cavaliers, the Vikings, Billy Larkin and the Delegates, and Neil Diamond.

Ralph Pugay - Artist Presentation

6pm - 8pm, MAHB 221

Originally from the Philippines, Pugay is a Portland-based artist whose work is rooted in the investigation of anxiety and alienation that exist in an era of rapid globalization and information consumption. His work has been shown at local and national venues including IGLOO, Disjecta, Grounds for Sculpture, The Door at Ludlow Street, Salt Lake Art Center, and The Time-Based Arts Festival. In 2010, Pugay received the Outstanding Student Achievement Award in Contemporary Sculpture from the International Sculpture Center. His paintings have been featured in Small Doggies Quarterly, Sculpture Magazine, and the 2011 Pacific Coast edition of New American Paintings. He is a recipient of grants from the Foundation for Contemporary Art and Portland State University where he received an MFA in Contemporary Studio Practice.

Tuesday, May 8

Hayley Barker - Artist Presentation

6pm - 7pm, MAHB 222

Hayley Barker makes drawings and paintings based on her personal experience spending time in the nature of her neighborhood. Her most recent solo show, Cathedrals, at Charles A. Hartman Fine Art, was reviewed in Art in America , the Oregonian and Visual Arts Source online. Her work has appeared in numerous regional and international venues, New American Painting magazine and the Drawing Center's Artist Registry. She received her BA from the University of Oregon (1996), her MFA in Intermedia, from the University of Iowa (2001). She lives and works in Portland, Oregon, where she is represented by Charles A. Hartman Fine Art.

Reception and Art Student Exhibition

See the wonderful new work created between Summer 2011 and Spring 2012 by PCC Cascade art students. Awards given at 5:30 by special guest juror Charles Froelick, owner of Froelick Gallery in Portland.

The Gallery is open 9am - 5pm, Monday-Friday.

Wednesday, May 9

Eva Speer - Artist Presentation

11am - 12pm, MAHB 222

Eva Speer presents and discusses her personal work. Speer is a versatile artist who uses paint to convey aspects of weight/levity, memory and a combination thereof. Her work, a rare mix of aesthetic approaches, utilizes, but does not rely upon, the trope of what makes a photo seem real.

Portland Short Film Selection

2-3pm, MAHB 104 (Auditorium)

Join for a viewing of short films representing a wide variety of genres and styles from filmmakers in the Portland area. This event includes films from professional filmmakers, artists, and students from the Art Institute of Portland, Portland Community College and other Portland film and multimedia colleges. Suitable for general audiences.

Ibrahim Kelly songs are inspired by his Dogon heritage and his experiences growing up in Africa. Dusu plays original music as well as recreating music based upon traditional song and dance from various regions of Mali; a western style deeply rooted in an African soil.

Cascade Campus's Artistic Gathering

5:30pm -9:00pm, MAHB 104 (Auditorium)

5:30pm -6:20pm Walt Curtis (Lecture/Poetry reading)

6:25pm -7:30pm Sabrina Guitart (Film Salmon Poet )

7:30pm -7:45pm Intermission

7:45pm - 8:00pm Mona Huneidi (Animation Katching )

8:05pm - 9:00pm Dylan Lee Johnston (Music)

Walt Curtis - Lecture/Poetry Reading 1hr: Walt Curtis is Portland's unofficial Poet Laureate. He is the author of Mala Noche , which inspired Gus Van Sant's first film. He is secretary of the Oregon Cultural Heritage Commission. For 40 years, he has co-hosted The Talking Earth, on KBOO. 90.7 FM radio. Curtis has read with William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, and Ken Kesey. Salmon Poet is an apocalyptic message about Planet Earth that he first delivered in the 1974 Mad Bomber's Notebook from Out of the Ashes Press.

Salmon Poet is a poetic journey, an ode to Nature through the voice of the poet Walt Curtis and the vision of filmmaker Sabrina Guitart. This artistic-ecological film evokes the spiritual journey of the salmon through the Oregon landscape. Nature, shamanism, and the return of the salmon to reproduce and regenerate the eco-system are the main themes of the film. Salmon Poet honors Mother Earth, but also the voice of the Poet, the prophet who speaks a message of ecological alarm and offers his poetical meditations on the earth itself. The evocative music of the film is mostly composed by David Guitart, and song writer Dusty Santamaria.

Mona Huneidi - Animation Katching: Mona Huneidi studied Filmmaking with an emphasis on animation at San Francisco State University and The San Francisco Art Institute. She has worked in various aspects of television preproduction in Kuwait for children's programs as well as variety shows. She arrived back in the US in the early nineties where she started working in theatre first as a mask making and film projections assistant for theatre and then working on dramaturgical duties. In addition Mona produces, writes and directs animated and pixilated shorts, although her next project will combine both live action and stop motion.

Katching is a low-fi stop motion animation that explores issues of fidelity and espionage in a jocular manner. Every day Spy leaves for work where he engages in espionage and mysterious rites, oblivious to the peculiar and unsavory character that clandestinely finds refuge in the cash register with his mate Houseboy.

Directed by: Mona Huneidi Huneidi

Screenplay by: Mona Huneidi Huneidi

Photography by: Catherine Egan, Mona Huneidi Huneidi

Dylan Lee Johnston: a bass player & songwriter living off east Burnside st. in Portland Oregon, After living most his years in Alaska, and later subsiding in various bus stations, squats and motels between Nicaragua, New York and Berlin. He is in the works of the 2012 release of "Hope & Hunger", recorded in Old Town, China Town in the rainy winter of 2012 in this broken America.

Thursday, May 10

Michelle Damis and Mariessa Portelance - Staged Reading

6pm - 9pm, MAHB 104

Professional actress, dancer, stunt woman and more, Michelle Damis lends her wide range of skills and an even wider range of acting talents to her work. She was in last year's Art Beat film, Coup de Cinema , several Portland short films, and you can see her in an upcoming episode of NBC's Grimm .

Mariessa Portelance received her BFA in Acting from Boston University's acting program. She has been a performer since her early years as a dancer. Her acting work has been seen in theaters around the country. Most recently she has been involved in several Portland productions, including films and web series.

Friday, May 11

Adam Sorensen - Artist Talk

9am - 10am, MAHB 222

Drawing upon disparate vocational and popular traditions from across the world, Adam Sorensen's paintings articulate a particular vision. It is a vision deeply tied to the reality of landscape while imbued with enough imagination to make these painting otherworldly.

The trail of aesthetic influence is not hidden in Sorensen's work. Pulling equally from television and animation aesthetics, ukiyo-e traditions of Japanese woodcuts, the Hudson River School, and painters of the American West., Sorensen strikes an unbelievable balance between the terrific wonder of the sublime and the inaccessibility of imagined place. The Romanticism of Caspar David Friedrich melds with the vivid sharpness of near digital vistas devoid of figures but not lacking in personal depth.

Born in Chicago, Illinois, and raised in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, Adam Sorensen received a BFA from Alfred University in New York and a Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in painting from the Studio Art Center International, Florence, Italy. Sorensen lives and works in Portland, OR. He has shown his work frequently at museums and galleries throughout the Northwest where his influence and dedication have been acutely felt.

Jodi Lightner-Artist Presentation/Workshop

9am - 10am, Presentation MAHB 223

10:30am - 12pm, Workshop MAHB 223

Focusing on the translucent quality of Mylar, this presentation and workshop will highlight how to create visual depth by using various approaches with watercolor. During the workshop, Lightner will work with participants to explore applications with washes and glazing as well as demonstrate how to incorporate multiple layers by utilizing window cut-outs to show successive layers.

A Kansas native, Lightner completed her MFA degree at Wichita State University in 2010. She has exhibited nationally and internationally, including juried and invitational shows. Her work has been seen in Angle Gallery, Seattle; the AIR Gallery, New York City; and the Cocoon Gallery, Kansas City as well as other locations through out the United States. She has also participated in artist residencies focused on studio practice at the International School of Painting, Drawing, and Sculpture in Montecastello diVibio, Italy, and the Vermont Student Center in Johnson, Vermont. In addition to a studio practice, Lightner complements her work with teaching drawing and painting at Wichita State University. Currently, she is the Emerging Artist in Residency at Penn State Altoona.

Alex Lilly - Artist Presentation

10am - 11am, MAHB 221

Alex Lilly is a Portland based activist and artist. Since 2005, Lilly has been painting large un-stretched canvases of American military vehicles in Iraq on fire or in the process of being destroyed. He will present his work and discuss political activism and art making in post 9-11 United States.

Horia Boboia - Artist Presentation

1pm - 2pm, MAHB 221

Horia Boboia discusses his art and presents his recent video works. Born in Romania, Boboia received a BFA (1983) and an MFA (1985) from California Institute of the Arts, Los Angeles. He has lived and worked in Bucharest, Los Angeles, New York, Tel-Aviv, and Berlin and currently resides in Portland where he teaches art at Portland State University. He works with painting, photography video and mixed media and exhibited his work both nationally and internationally.

Student Films

1pm - 2pm, MAHB 104

Come and enjoy this screening of Multimedia students' films, including drama, comedy, documentary and more.